


Don't Forget to Breathe (Cause You'll Be OK Darling)

by 00qverlord



Series: The universe of Neal Caffrey [3]
Category: Fox and O'Hare Series - Janet Evanovich & Lee Goldberg, White Collar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drabble, M/M, Neal you're fine child, Panic Attacks, calm your ass, what if everything goes wrong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6836566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/00qverlord/pseuds/00qverlord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal has a what-if moment, and Nick helps him through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Forget to Breathe (Cause You'll Be OK Darling)

**Author's Note:**

> Idk if I'm really happy with this. Oh well, I'll live, as it was just a drabble. I think it was a waste of a good title though. Oh well. Hope you enjoy. I'm sorry it's a lot shorter than the others, I just didn't have a lot to put for this one.

Nick recognized the pacing. A scattered pattern that even the best of mathematicians could not find. Neal's hands were fidgeting, clenching and unclenching and running his thumb through the rest of his fingers. Nick decided to confront Neal before he made himself tired. The flight was this evening, and he wasn't about to have a nervous Neal Caffrey along for the ride. Nick knew better than to make Neal stop pacing. He would be up again in a matter of seconds. So Nick sat on one of the chairs that Neal was pacing around. 

"What's wrong?" It was in between genuinely curious and fondly exasperated. Neal didn't answer for a moment, and Nick almost thought he wasn't going to.  
"Just... I don't know. It's stupid. I don't even know why I'm worrying about it." But as he said that, his body completely contradicted his actions and he started pacing more frantically. Nick wasn't sure he was entirely aware of it.  
"It's not stupid. I want you to feel OK going into this."  
Neal took a breath, "It's just... I know Peter said it was alright for me to go, but I feel like even me pulling this off with you guys will put me back to ground 0 with him. We had a trust thing starting out again. And now I just feel like this is telling him it is possible for me to pull of something like this, even behind his back. It's just going to drag us down. Also, we're flying to England. That on it's own could be a problem."  
Nick knew about Kwyn. Well, Q now, but he knew him as Kwyn first. Dealing with criminals in foreign affairs could always lead to trouble with MI-5, and both of them would rather avoid dragging Neal's little brother into the mess to get them out of trouble with the home-soil-division, especially since they were the ones pulling off the cons, and most of them were charged criminals themselves. It would be a shame to have to send a top agent after them.    
"And what if it goes wrong, like what if he doesn't buy it? What if he figures out we're conning him? We're screwed, I go back to working for Peter but it isn't what it used to be, and _everything rides on this, Nick._ "   
He let Neal get out of his system, before standing up and kissing him hard.   
"We're going to be fine."  
"Bu-"  
"No buts. We have everything planned to the nth. We have every scenario possible planned out and accounted for. In none of them, do we have to drag Kwyn into this. In none of them, does it say you won't go to Peter exactly like we found you. And if something does go wrong, we have a plan for that too. OK?"  
"OK. Thanks, Nick.  
"No problem darling. Ready to hop on a plane?"  
"Ready. Let's go meet the others."


End file.
